Chris Anderson 'The long tail theory' 2006

The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of "hits" at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly-targeted goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare.


This can be seen in the music industry. Music in the charts is bought more then niches, for instance rihannas album from 2010 will be popular when first released however by 2013 it will steadily stop been sold as much.